


Recite Me A Kiss

by hinatella



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Theatre, Dorks in Love, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 09:45:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5622928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinatella/pseuds/hinatella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He waits for him to continue, and grows a little wary because of Kenma's long, long pause that spreads through the short space between them. "They have a kiss scene. Right at the end."</p><p>Morisuke Yaku did not sign up for this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recite Me A Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> first!! i'd like to say please be gentle this was mostly self-indulgent fluff and i'm not 100% how the school casting process works. i just wanted to write a kiss scene tbh
> 
> second, this is for my friend qq from ll anon net! you said you didn't get a single christmas present so i wanted to give you a (really really really (sorry) late) one. i tried lowkey asking for your fave ships and i hope you didn't catch on dfjskfs I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS EVEN A LITTLE ILY QQ!!
> 
> and third, thank you to bre for beta reading this for me!

Yaku is all for supporting his friends in their endeavors. It's only the right thing to do, when they come asking with wide, innocent eyes and a pout on their lips, quivering and near-tears, and extravagant, over-exaggerated theatrics and _since when was Lev interested in theater and why does he want Yaku to tag along to auditions for a play._

"I feel a lot less nervous when you're around, Yaku-san!" Lev, like he's clairvoyant, like he can read every thought in Yaku's mind. But it's probably projected all over his face because he can _feel_ the distaste oozing off himself.

"Can't you get Kenma or Kuroo or someone else to? I have an errand to run right now."

"You said you'd go!"

"You asked me two seconds ago! You didn't tell me it was today!"

Lev stops walking in his impossibly long strides, (and when Yaku stops too, he realizes that he's breathing a little hard from the effort of keeping up—screw him and his damn _legs_ ) turns to Yaku, and there's that stupid pout again, curving his tiny pink lips in a gesture that's getting more and more difficult to say no to.

He sighs, shoulders slumping in defeat. Lev doesn't even wait for his words of resignation as he says, "Great!", grabs Yaku's wrist and starts off again towards the auditorium with fast, purposeful strides. Yaku has to half-jog to keep up with him.

They enter the auditorium in a burst as Lev lets go of Yaku to open the doors. It's cold inside, the AC system bathing the room in relentless chills, and Yaku grumbles as he clutches his arms because he'd forgotten to bring his jacket with him. The whole place is dimming lit save for the stage lights up front, and Lev excitedly bounds towards the lights like an excitable dog. It's like he'd completely forgotten that he'd dragged Yaku here against his (consenting, _coerced_ ) will.

Yaku finally catches up to Lev, scans the three rows filled with students in red jersey and sweater vests and unruly black hair—pauses.

Double takes.

Kuroo perks up when he makes eye contact with Yaku and waves all too enthusiastically in his direction. "Yaku! Hey!" he shouts.

Besides Kuroo sits Kenma, head bowed and hidden underneath his hoodie, as if he wants the piece of fabric to swallow him whole. There's Inuoka and Fukunaga and Taketora too. "Oh my god."

When he feels a tug at his sleeve, Yaku looks up and glares lasers at Lev.

" _What_?"

"You needed a whole group for moral support?" Yaku asks, part in disbelief, part in exasperation because if he'd known he would have sternly said no, opposing that pouty mouth, wide-eyed gesture. (Maybe.)

"Oh!" Lev looks over at the row Yaku sweeps his hand at, shakes his head, and smiles with candid sunshine. "I wanted them to audition with me."

"What?"

"Yeah! C'mon!" Lev, insistence as always, grabs Yaku against and walks him to where the rest of their friends are seated. Yaku wants to be released, says so, but Lev acts like he doesn't hear as he waves in greeting. A wave of dread courses through his veins like liquid apprehension.

He did not sign up for this.

He did _not_ sign up for this.

"Lev dragged you into this too, huh?" Kuroo questions as they approach, grinning in amusement.

"I didn't sign up for this!" He's looking at Kuroo as he says this, but it's directed at Lev, who lets go and raises his hands in a placating manner.

"Yaku-san, calm down! I really did want your support, y'know? You don't have to audition if you don't want to."

" _Kenma_ wanted to?"

"Kuro forced me to come," Kenma answers, eyes boring wry holes at his best friend. "I didn't want to."

Inuoka jumps from his seat, adds in his overexcited tone of voice, "Kuroo convinced us all to join after Lev asked. I think it'll be fun!"

Yaku peers at them all, then up at Lev, startles a little when he sees an expectant look on his face. "What? If you think I'm joining too then you're wrong." Lev opens his mouth to speak, and Yaku raises his hand to shut him up. "If you try and force me to join, I swear I'll leave right now."

Despite being shot down, Lev looks happy, blaringly happy. Yaku thinks he's an open book but he can be the biggest enigma sometimes. "That means you'll stay right? Right?"

He sighs, long suffering and long defeated. "I already agreed to it, didn't I?"

Lev picks him up, _picks him up_ , off the ground and hugs him so tightly Yaku is left out of breath and unable to tell him to put him down again. When he does, finally, Yaku staggers, flustered, to sit down and belatedly tell Lev not to do that again. (Absently, he thinks of how warm Lev is compared to the coldness of this room, then discards the thought into the recesses of his mind like it never happened.)

Halfway into auditions, Yaku is kind of bored. The practice lines they use are in a language he hardly understands. Well—he does understand. But it's convoluted in wordiness and half of it goes right over his head. Then Lev goes up, the first of person he knows, and he'll never admit to a soul that he sat up a little in rapt attention. Only a little.

And he's instantly sucked in because he had no idea Lev could act like that, slipping into character with easy and projecting his voice with all the power his character is meant to have. He's nudged a few times from his side, and is met with Kuroo's teasing smile and dancing eyebrows. Yaku scowls and spends the rest of Lev's audition staring madly at the ground, vehemently denying to himself that his face is burning.

Yaku chances a glance onstage again when Lev is finished, and he's looking his way, oh no, with those big, expressive eyes that Yaku is sure can see into him, right through him, can tell what the whole auditorium is thinking. But it's like the thoughts of the whole auditorium doesn't even matter right now because he's _looking right at him._ Yaku has to look away from him as the intensity burns right into his retinas like incandescent sun rays.

He doesn't dare look up again until he sees a pair of legs appear in vision, and he pretends to be nonchalant about it as he raises his head. Lev looks at him with worry, and Yaku furrows his eyebrows in confusion.

"Did you hate it that much?" He asks.

"I never said that."

"But you weren't looking half the time," he practically, literally shouts.

"I was looking!"

"No you weren't! I looked this way three times and you weren't looking either of those times!"

Yaku opens his mouth to defend himself because he was looking, with too much focus, most of the time, but Kuroo places an arm around his shoulders and answers for him.

"Oh, he was watching. He was watching _real_ close." Lev looks excited to hear that, his frown turning upright like the flick of a switch. Yaku tries desperately to control the heat that's starting to build up against the cold air.

"Kuroo, I swear to God I'll shove my foot right up your ass if you don't shut up and take your arm off of me."

Kuroo keenly backs off, but he doesn't stop there. "Did you see? The love in his eyes? It was li— _fuck_."

He feels a little bad—maybe that elbow to the stomach was a little too harsh—but Yaku relishes his sanity a lot more right now. He glares at Kuroo with disdain, and Kuroo wags his eyebrows. Ugh.

"Love?" Lev looks from Yaku to Kuroo and back again. "Did he say love?"

"No, ignore him. He doesn't know what he's saying," Yaku is all too quick to dismiss.

"You loved my performance, then? You think I'm cool?"

"Your audition was good. But you can't just call yourself cool when you're the biggest idiot in here."

"I am cool. The Director praised me and everything! I'm gonna get the part of the best guy in the play!"

"Don't jump to that conclusion if they hadn't told you yet."

"I know it, though," Lev says, with deadpan conviction.

Yaku raises an eyebrow. "You're ridiculous. And uncool."

"I'm the coolest person here!"

"Don't lie. Lying is kind of uncool too."

"Yaku-san!"

Someone taps his shoulder. He turns and finds a face he doesn’t recognize, but he's seen it in this room before. Yaku is ready to apologize for the noise, because that must be why she's here. But she stops him instead, places a hand on his shoulder. "Yaku-san?"

"...Yes?" He'd question why she knows his name, but Lev just shouted it two seconds ago.

"Are you auditioning for the play? No one's taken the role of Beatrice yet, and we're short a few people."

"No, I—"

"You should join us!" Kuroo says from behind him.

"Yeah, Yaku-san. We'll all be in it!" Lev adds, scares him, because he's suddenly at his side, weaseled into the conversation.

"But I—"

"It's too early to say now, but Haiba-san will mostly likely be getting the role of Benedick—"

"—I knew it!—"

"And the play director and I overheard your conversation because you two were quite loud over the sound of the crowd," Yaku pointedly stares at Lev, "And we both think that you would fit the role of Beatrice well."

"I...I'm sorry. Who are you?"

"I'm the assistant play director, Haruka-san." She bows her head, and Yaku respectfully returns the gesture.

He wants to deny it, of course he does, he has no acting experience and knows nothing about the play they're acting out, has no clue who the characters are—Benedick? Beatrice? Are those western names?—doesn't have a single clue why he'd want to cut his schedule short to make room for rehearsals. But it takes one look, _one glance_ , at Lev and he knows he's fallen like limp leaves without so much has giving a tentative answer yet.

So he finds himself, a week later, in the front row of the auditorium, face in hands, regretting every life choice he's made up until this point that has had anything to do with that platinum haired dork with infuriating long legs and an addictive smile.

He's elbowed in his side and finds Kuroo there, gives him a look that he hopes screams out _I hate you_ in deafening volumes.

"Hey," Kuroo says. "It won't be all bad."

"I can't believe I agreed to this. Why did I agree to this? I hate all of you."

"Lighten up. This'll help 'widen your horizons!', or whatever."

Yaku grumbles. "Well, I guess isn't the worst thing that's ever happened. But that doesn't mean I'm excited about this."

"You had a chance to walk out if you were really set against it. The play director probably would let you leave, but he's pretty set on you being Beatrice, you know?"

"I don't even know who that is yet," he sighs.

"She and Benedick are s’pose to be catty enemies turned lovers, or something like that. They hate each other a lot in the beginning."

Yaku thinks he gets it a little more now, but lovers?

"Kuro," Kenma speaks up from two seats over. "Are you going to tell him?"

"Wouldn't it be more fun if he found out for himself?" Kuro turns to answer Kenma.

Yaku narrows his eyes at both of them. "Tell me what?"

Kuroo sits back, bumps his head when it's met with the body of a passerby ( _ha_ ), but he doesn't say a word. So Kenma answers for him, to Kuroo's disappointment. "Benedick and Beatrice are lovers..."

He knows that. Kuroo just informed him. Yaku waits for him to continue, and he grows a little wary because of Kenma's long, long pause that spreads through the short space between them. "They have a kiss scene. Right at the end."

"They _what_."

 

✂

 

Yaku swore he'd tell the play director that he would withdraw, after the first day of introductions when they were getting to know the ground rules and guidelines and strict schedule. He swore he'd tell after the first day of rehearsals, when he'd been given the full script and told to memorize his character, Beatrice's, lines. He swore he'd tell when he spent time on weekends practicing his lines with Lev and stumbling on the words because what do these even mean.

But, it's fun. And he'd never saw it to his face, but Yaku kind of enjoys spending a little extra time with Lev outside of helping him with his studies. He enjoys it and he hates it because he knows it's obvious in the way his friends tease him about it, constantly, in the way Lev stares for a little too long like he knows something, in the way his stomach flips and swirls like a whirlpool while his face turns red ( _it's only at the prospect of the kiss scene, he tells himself, as if that's meant to justice anything. But no, it makes this whole situation worst._ )

Yaku purposely suggestions scene to practice with Lev before he can say anything because he's wary of the fact Lev will pick That Scene with the Unmentionable Thing in it, and he really, really, doesn't want to go over that. It's unbelievably sappy, and he'll die hearing the words "Do you not love me?" in Lev's voice, sad and unsure like a neglected puppy. God.

They've taken a break from Yaku tutoring Lev in English Comprehension, because he was bored, and Yaku rushed the suggestion of acting out Act I Scene I again. Lev looked crestfallen, just like he'd been the other times Yaku decided the scene, and it isn't a look that fits Lev's countenance, always so full of twinkling starlight to the point of overflowing.

" _God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face."_

" _Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were."_

" _Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher."_

" _A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours."_ Yaku pauses and frown. Lev seems to notice the subtle change in the atmosphere as he slips out of character. "Why did I have to play Beatrice?"

"'Cause, Yaku-san, I auditioned for Benedick first. Plus it says he's noble and full of valour, and I think his character fits me." Lev places his hands on either waist and stands with bravado.

Yaku snorts. "Of course you'd pick a character for that reason." He looks down at the script in hand again. "Okay, let's continue."

Lev doesn't say a word, which is odd, because it takes a lot to get him to keep quiet most days. When Yaku looks up, he's met with dispirited eyes and a frown that really, _really_ , doesn't belong on a face that's bonafide enthusiastic electricity.

"Lev?" he asks, concerned. "What's the matter?"

The other takes a moment to chew nervously at his lips before he continues. "Yaku-san...did I do something wrong?"

"No? What makes you think that?" He's genuinely confused, but he's sweating buckets on the inside because as naive and impressionable and simple-minded as Lev can be sometimes, he has a flair for noticing the small things. When there's something gnawing at Yaku's mind, or any of their friends, he catches on in an instant, smashes through the stoic walls with boisterous abandon. It's no different now.

"You're nervous about the kiss scene."

Yaku bristles, tries hard to need a straight face and not let his nervousness show, but it's hard under the scrutiny of Lev's green, shrewd eyes. "N-no."

"You are. I can tell 'cause you're stuttering and you never stutter."

 _Why is he staring so intently_?

"Is it 'cause you've never kissed anyone before?"

That's not it at all, is what Yaku wants to say. Instead, blurts, "Yes," because it's technically not wrong.

Lev's expression looks pensive now, and Yaku begins to relax the coiled up tension in his shoulders until Lev smacks his fist against palm, like a _eureka_ moment has suddenly come to him.

"I never kissed anyone before too. So we should practice right now," Lev states, like it's the most natural thing in the world.

But Yaku's heart momentarily stops. He thinks he doesn't hear Lev right. But Lev looks at him, completely earnest, and Yaku frowns.

"You can't say things like that and be serious."

"But I _am_ serious," Lev reasons. And Yaku can't deny that. Lev momentarily glances down, hand sliding over the back of his neck in a show of vulnerability. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm nervous too. But!" The nervousness slides away with a blink, and he's smiling again, green eyes twinkling. "This can be practice! So we don't screw up in front of other people!"

Yaku raises an eyebrow. He's trying hard to mask how flustered he's really feeling. "Well, sure, but—"

Lev places both hands, a heavy weight, on Yaku's shoulders, and he leans away because Lev's eyes are burning, too hot, too bright.

He's going to give in, he wants to, _Lev_ wants to, he shouldn't he shouldn't he shouldn't _he shouldn't_ —

"O-Okay," comes the uncharacteristically timid reply. He looks away when he says it though, eyebrows drawn together with frustration at how his thoughts don't seem to translate to the right words. Or maybe it does, and he's denying it. (He is.) "It's just practice."

"Right."

He turns his head, closes his eyes, and they remain that way as the apprehension seeps like molasses into his jittery bones. Nothing happens for a while. Yaku cracks an eye open and sees Lev staring.

"Are...are you going to get on with it or should I?"

Lev inhales. Exhales. "You look like you wouldn't enjoy it and I don't want to make you uncomfortable since this is our first kiss? And it is kind of scary and I don't want you to be scared, I just want you to be happy because it makes me happy too because you're my friend and I—"

It's quiet, suddenly, and warm. So warm. Yaku's stomach is fluttering with weightless, his hands clenching onto Lev's collar, hard, with nerves, and his lips, _oh_ , they're trembling a little against chapped lips that are firm and sure and _determined_. This is all wrong, he thinks, laughing a little against Lev's lips. This is backwards. He should be the certain one. Lev should be near bursting with nerves.

Lev pulls away after a few seconds, starry-eyed and beaming.

" _Peace_!" Yaku says. " _I will stop your mouth_."

"Hey, wait. That's my line," Lev pouts.

"You were too slow," Yaku teases.

"Can we do it again? For practice."

Yaku rolls his eyes, and smiles, soft and bashful. "We should continue studying. Don't you have a test in two days? You can't participate in the play if your grades drop, Lev."

"Yaku-san!"

"C'mon," he insists, making his way to the desk in the room. Lev follows and plops down into his seat, groaning loudly, petulantly. "I really don't want to."

"Too bad."

Lev looks kind of cute all focused, tongue sticking partway out of his mouth as he hunches over the desk and drags his pen against the page. Yaku considers telling him. He considers telling him how he really feels, at this moment, because Lev is an open book and Yaku knows he probably, _hopefully_ , feels the same way.

But he doesn't.

Not today.

_Another time._


End file.
